


You Don't Have To Tell

by attic_gremlin



Category: The Legend of Zelda & Related Fandoms
Genre: Coming Out, Crossdressing, Fluff, Gen, Linked Universe, LinkedUniverse, Trans Female Character, legend gives some good advice, mostly - Freeform, she/her wild, the crossdressing tag is for Legend not WIld, trans girl wild
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-04
Updated: 2021-02-04
Packaged: 2021-03-15 11:53:41
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,022
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29188851
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/attic_gremlin/pseuds/attic_gremlin
Summary: Wild is a girl, but the others don't know yet. She thinks Legend might be like her, though, so she decides to open up and gets some good advice.
Relationships: Legend & Wild (Linked Universe)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 98
Collections: Linked Universe Write-offs!





	You Don't Have To Tell

When Wild saw Legend washing a  _ dress _ in the river on laundry day, she knew she had to get him alone to talk. 

It’s not like it was only a tunic and her imagination was running wild, either — it was pink,  _ sequined, _ and adorned with the puffiest sleeves she’d ever seen. And Legend was waving it around it broad daylight, in front of Hylia and everyone.

She had to talk to him.

She managed to wrangle him into firewood duty with her two days later. She was practically buzzing with anticipation, and it showed: as soon as they were out of earshot from camp, she practically shouted, “Hey Legend, I’m a girl!” 

Legend raised a single eyebrow and looked over at her. “Okay,” He said, and shrugged. “Thanks for telling me. You have a new name?” 

“No,” Wild squeaked. “Wild is fine.” 

Legend nodded. Wild fidgeted.

“I wanted to tell you,” She said, “because I saw that dress of yours in your laundry the other day. I thought, maybe...”

“Oh,” Legend seemed to have a realization. “Yeah, you can borrow that if you want. I don’t wear it that much. I wouldn’t have thought you’d go for the glitter and sequins kind of thing, though. You seem more of a practical kinda gal. I have others you can look at, but take whichever you want.”

That… wasn’t what Wild was expecting. What  _ had _ she been expecting? For him to freak out and reject her? No, not really; any guy who pulls a sequined dress out of his pack in broad daylight has to be comfortable with pushing the limits of gender. But, she supposes she wondered if Legend was like her. She guesses, not, now, since he still hasn’t said anything to that end. It’s not like he hadn’t had an opportunity, in the seemingly endless silence that now hung over them. Until he said otherwise, she’d have to assume he was still a man.

Still, she appreciated his offer! This was going  _ far  _ better than she’d expected. 

“I… That’d be nice, thanks Legend. Oh, hey, listen, you can’t tell the others! I’m serious, I’m not ready for them to know yet.”

Legend gave her a funny look and a shrug. “Okay. I wasn’t planning to,”

Wild stopped. “You weren’t? Why not?”   
  


Legend looked incredulous. “What the hell, Wild, I’m not gonna out you to the whole group without your permission! That’d be the shittiest thing I could possibly do in this situation. It’s up to you to tell them whenever and however you want, if at all.”

“But…” Wild looked slightly guilty. “Don’t I  _ have _ to tell them at some point?”   
  
“Hell no!” Legend exclaimed. “It’s  _ your  _ secret, they don’t have to  _ ever _ know if you don’t want them to.”

Wild seemed to think about this. “I guess I always felt bad for keeping it from them. I felt like they deserved to know. Like maybe I was deceiving them.”

“You were,” Legend assures her frankly, “you let them make assumptions, and then never corrected them, leading them to believe something that wasn’t true.”

Wild glared. “That’s not making me feel any better,”

Legend rolled his eyes. “You let them believe what they wanted to believe because you had no idea how they’d react. You only told  _ me _ about this because of my dress! There’s a reason you’ve kept it a secret this long, and I don’t know exactly what that reason is — maybe you thought they wouldn’t understand, maybe you feared for your  _ safety —  _ but it’s got to be a pretty good one to have endured getting misgendered all day every day until now. If you  _ never  _ want to tell them, that’s your choice to make. They don’t “deserve”  _ shit _ from you.” 

Wild’s eyes were wide. 

“But,” Legend continued. “If you  _ did _ want to tell them, I have no doubt they’d do their best to support you. I have no idea if any of them have experience in this department, but I think they’d  _ try. _ And if they decided to be asses about it, I — and my fire rod — would be in your corner.”

Wild was quiet for a long time, thinking. Legend waited patiently, collecting dry kindling as they strolled.

“I guess…” Wild tried. She sighed. “I just don’t want everything to change. I don’t want to come out, and then wish forever that I could go back to the way things were.”

Legend seemed almost pained. He heaved a heavy sigh and leaned against a tree with his arms crossed. He wouldn’t meet her eyes.

“You can’t ever go back.” He said grimly. “We can’t go back to the way things were  _ yesterday _ . The world is always moving forward, and as the world turns, things change. It changes from day to night or spring to summer. We fall asleep, and we wake up. Motion is the way of the world. To try to keep it the same would only stagnate it. If you decided to tell them, things would change. And then, things would settle again. It would be different, but all new things eventually become old again. But, you can’t live your life in fear of regret… because when you try to run from regret, you’re only chasing it. You’re afraid to act, because you don’t want to regret it, but you could end up regretting your inaction anyway. The only way you can possibly avoid regret altogether is to do what you think is right, and roll the dice.”

Wild thought for a moment. Then, she smiled and stepped forward, wrapping Legend in a bear hug.

“Thanks, Legend.”

“‘Course,” Legend replied, hugging her back fiercely. “I’m not just gonna sit here and let my  _ sister  _ wallow in misery.”

Laughter bubbled up out of Wild’s stomach at his words. She felt lighter than air, as if the only thing tethering her to earth was Legend’s arms, and if he let go, she could fly away.

She wanted to chase this feeling. If this is what it could feel like to come out to a brother, she didn’t see how she could possibly regret trying seven more times.

**Author's Note:**

> This was a 1-hour prompt challenge!! the original prompt was "Listen, you can't tell the others. I'm serious, you can't!" 
> 
> I made some very minor wording edits before posting here, but the original can be found here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1SdAONSZZr9IqpAT24F-q-Tq10p2uAC18Pqdv-IA1Qcc/edit
> 
> We had some awesome submissions for this prompt, please check them out in the collection this work belongs to!


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